Two of the most recognizable landmarks in Philadelphia - City Hall and Claes Oldenburg's Clothspin
Colin Harrison has crafted seven turbocharged thrillers that pulse with the energy of New York City, including Bodies Electric, Manhattan Nocturne, Afterburn, and You Belong to Me. Here’s a vital point that cannot be overstated: Harrison’s fiction isn’t just thrilling—it’s fiercely literary, evoking the brilliance of masters like Philip Roth and Don DeLillo.
However, before penning these seven Big Apple scorchers, Harrison—raised and educated in the Philadelphia area—honed his writer chops with his debut novel, Break and Enter (1990), written in his late twenties. The story unfolds in the City of Brotherly Love, following Peter Scattergood, a tall, handsome, athletic, 31-year-old lawyer working for the District Attorney's office in City Hall.
The novel is written in close third person, following Peter from the first page to the last. Readers familiar with Japanese author Hideo Yokoyama's Seventeen will recognize a similar structure: the protagonist is forced to endure an unrelenting barrage of challenges, as if he were the sole target in a high-stakes game of dodgeball. Colin Harrison employs this approach to equally gripping effect.
Oh, yes. In the opening pages, Peter Scattergood is in the midst of a murder trial, expecting the jury to deliver a guilty verdict once he, as the prosecuting attorney, presents the evidence and delivers his final statement. Then it happens: Peter is also assigned a politically explosive double-murder case, one of the victims being the nephew of the city's mayor. Alongside his demanding professional responsibilities, Janice, his wife of seven years, has just walked out on him. Not long thereafter, horny and frustrated, Peter brings another woman to his bed on Delancey Street, further fueling the chaos and drama in his life.
Break and Enter is a legal thriller that will bring to mind Scott Turow or John Grisham. However, unlike Mitch McDeere or Gray Grantham in the Grisham novels, Peter Scattergood has weaknesses and flaws, he's not an entirely likable character. Yet, we can root for him as he battles his way to repair his marriage and uncover the truth behind the Baltimore Avenue murders.
As Colin Harrison does in all of his New York novels, this Philly yarn contains many references to race, class, and gender. We're right there with Peter as he interacts with men and women from all strata of society. For example, here's what goes through Peter's mind as he sits down to interview a black suspect from one of Philadelphia rougher neighborhoods -
"Peter had seen many defendants in his time, all variety of men, from the most despicable to rather likable, talkative fellows; either type could be remorseless or weep with guilt. Carothers possessed a handsome, watchful face and the strong, loose-limbed build that conveyed, like a middle-weight boxer, the ability to move fists quickly through air when angered. He stood rubbing wrists with the quiet detached cool meant to counterbalance his powerlessness in the situation."
Peter was raised a Quaker. When Peter turns his mind back on his past, we're given a taste of what this must have meant for a young Peter. Here's a snip: "His grandfather, an old-school Quaker banker, had been the last one in the family to use the Quaker "thee" and "thou" privately. Twenty-five years back, from across the room, he had stated firmly as Peter complained about something: Thou art an impatient boy, Peter. Thee must learn better discipline."
Break and Enter isn't quite on the level of his New York novels, most notably Bodies Electric and Manhattan Nocturne, but it is a strong first novel and one I thoroughly enjoyed. And if you have a particular interest in the city of Philadelphia, this will certainly provide added incentive to give the novel a go.
"Their townhouse stood on the south side of the two hundred black of Delancey. It was a narrow street, with two- and three-story brick homes, none newer than the early 1700s." Peter truly loves everything about his beautiful Delancey Street townhouse in Society Hill. And he yearns for Janice to move back in with him.
"Yeah, son of his sister who lives out on Baltimore Avenue in West Philadelphia. Everybody loved him, a real prince. Straight-A student at Overbrook High, on full scholarship to Penn. He'd been accepted to Harvard Medical School." So Peter's lawyer boss tells him about the mayor's nephew who was found murdered along with his girlfriend in their Baltimore Avenue apartment.
Driving out to Baltimore Avenue. Peter admires the thriving West Philadelphia businesses in the black community centered around 52nd and Market Street.
Arch Street Quaker Meeting House near Independence Mall. At one point, Peter sits in the historic meeting house and reflects that it was here, seven years ago, he and Janice were married.
Colin Harrison, born 1960
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